Algorithms
Episteme || Doxa || Gnosis
That Forever
Double Sonnet w| Late Stage Capitalism Ending at the Office
Poem Ending in a Line from Emily Dickinson (from local group "
We were indeed in for a treat! Local poet, Alicia Hoffman was our guest.
Originally from Pennsylvania, Alicia Hoffman lives, writes, and teaches in Rochester, New York. Author of two collections, "Railroad Phoenix," and "Like Stardust in the Peat Moss," her poems have appeared in a variety of journals, including The Penn Review, Radar Poetry, A-Minor Magazine, Typishly, The Community College Humanities Review, Softblow, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. Find out more at: www.aliciamariehoffman.com.
Several of the poems by Alicia Hoffman are from a local group responding to the same prompt: https://sites.google.com/site/wandaprompt/home
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We followed the usual format of each person reading -- in this case, couplet by couplet... and then the usual responding, with the added advantage of being able to ask the living poet present, questions.
For instance, what her thinking process was, and how she generated work. We asked Alicia about her preference for writing in couplets. Her response: that's how the poem comes most easily... it is not a formal decision like an architect designing a building, but rather an organic process and the couplets and enjambments allow space and pauses for the poem to develop. She works by sound.
Everyone present, including Alicia was thrilled with richness of both the poems and discussion.
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We followed the usual format of each person reading -- in this case, couplet by couplet... and then the usual responding, with the added advantage of being able to ask the living poet present, questions.
For instance, what her thinking process was, and how she generated work. We asked Alicia about her preference for writing in couplets. Her response: that's how the poem comes most easily... it is not a formal decision like an architect designing a building, but rather an organic process and the couplets and enjambments allow space and pauses for the poem to develop. She works by sound.
Everyone present, including Alicia was thrilled with richness of both the poems and discussion.
In the first poem, the prompt: (From June 2018 ): "Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see." -- Rene Magritte)
David: last couplet… paraphrase of Magritte… and ironic.
The poem addresses the current emphasis on productivity vs. incubatory… grasshopper and ant…. shy girl. not the writer…
The word "Industry" is a loaded gun in our society, filled with judgement about what
is "worthwhile", the praise for the industrious soul, as well as the power of Industry, and so little
respect for downtime. Perhaps we oppose incongruous to "industry" and allow a sense of a larger purpose than for instance the act of growing as "industry" in nature, We enjoyed the little lesson on crafting a poem... how most poems "end on an object" (line break, stanza break)
Comments included, how well the poem captures life today, how language fails… for instance the paradoxical way one can talk about tao, but that is not the real tao. I love the steady sense of conviction with the surprising support of "indolence". How dark and lazy are not synonymous...
... Underneath
what we are accustomed to
is all the love we are creating
in earth’s more indolent spaces.
Stevensesque flavor to indolent spaces-- what might they be?
Elaine: Industry… what does it mean? Incongruous vs. natural
Love and Life . synonymous. energy of living…
Algorithms (published in Typishly) is a delightfully clever poem responding to the computer age -- what organizes us... things like facebook, and what we are trained to expect to see … conflict between established and uncontrollable.
The cleverness...
what equations help us to equalize... how snow is followed by so now... parrots parroting... how the verb scan used to be used for our eyes, searching the (blank page of) sky... Judith brought up things we no longer see or hear... for instance, there is no more train whistle heard in the distance...
I remember hearing a good place for a poem to start is to start with a sentence, "I want..."
group comments to these couplets.
Myself, I prefer my sources to sweep in alliterative.
like wind whistling through antelope canyon,
like wind whistling through antelope canyon,
sharp scent of sage in the air. I prefer wine
so dark it carries in its darkness rumors
so dark it carries in its darkness rumors
of the great mysteries. I want to look god huge universal
in its many faces and demand the answers.
in its many faces and demand the answers.
I want to walk across the bridge of the world, another whistle in the w’s and repeated want.
live in a way that makes it a little bit better.
live in a way that makes it a little bit better.
We were gratified that Alicia confessed the words in the title of the next poem are not part of her everyday vocabulary! Like the line "I know I like the sound of solipsistic" -- which confines the
liking to the sound, not the meaning, perhaps the title is the same.
Episteme || Doxa || Gnosis[1]https://mapandterritory.org/doxa-episteme-and-gnosis-ea35e4408edd what is taught; what is told to us; what known from personal experience.
The discussion was far-reaching including everything form Satie's Gnossiens, a picture of a grandfather holding a grandson's violin case with the grandson trailing him while looking at his i phone... the delight of finding 4-leaf clovers... and admiration for the breathing rhythm of couplets
allowing a bigger making of the poem. She captures the mysterious nature of knowledge and pleasure... and perhaps in the last line, confirms the wisdom (gnosis) we hope to reach:
It is hope we continue to continue for.
That Forever: what a title for a poem which starts with reading a history of the human race...
I LOVE this poem-- how in 13 couplets we travel from "idiosyncrasies of imaginative names"
albeit, real people in the annals of history of wars, famines, disasters, to a scrolling list of hypotheticals (we are informed are part of our human trademark), which might include nuclear annihilation, or being swirled up into the vastness beyond known galaxies...
I feel as if I am observing a painting that opens up to every detail of every culture, as miraculous as that opening flower. Hypotheticals about what it is to die, swirl by up to the last words... where I believe indeed, we walk into a "story that forever is the future."
It is a celebratory poem I would call a "Whitmanesque".
We ran out of time, so no discussion of That Forever. Nor, Double Sonnet w| Late Stage Capitalism Ending at the Office*. We ended with the Poem Ending in a Line from Emily Dickinson.
Marcie pointed out the pleasure of reading a poem with a
from April 2019 everyone responds to the same prompt: “Sort of In honor of Mary Oliver - Be on the lookout for a small thing in your everyday life that you feel grateful for. Start there.”
Alicia’s mind went to “Dickinson's 372 "After a great pain a formal feeling comes... and did a little "throat clearing…" Note the opening words are "Start here.
**Marcie: no other poem starts there… and how refreshing to think
waking up need not be stressful!
Start here, between wakefulness
and sleep, between the reckoning
of another day and the bliss
of the body between the sheets.
David: likes the luke warm response to Mary Oliver in the prompt, avoiding the gushing Oliver-esque oversimplification. On the contrary, the poem is probing… the emotion runs through the prism of the intelligence.
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –
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[1]This and the next two were published in Live Encounters https://liveencounters.net/le-poetry-writing-2019/07-july-pw-2019/alicia-hoffman-alexa-plays-miles-davis/?fbclid=IwAR0iMDlLrh9DW9tGbaLFa3d16srn7AolyR7C-5zp0-8aINhol_SxoZ_2Lys
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